Ask Lana Krumwiede - Wednesday, Aug 28 discussion

Welcome to the group! I'll will be answering questions on Wednesday, August 28. For now, feel free to post your question early or just introduce yourself.

How many Freakling stories are you writing?
Will you write any books after the Freakling series?

When it comes to writing, you have to "slay many dragons" or overcome many obstacles. What are/were the biggest "dragons" you had to slay?

Good morning, everyone! Today is the day when questions will be answered, secrets will be shared, and beans will be spilled. I'll be hanging out in this group all day, so check in from time to time and let me know what you want to hear about. Writing? Publishing? Books? Writing groups? The James River Writers Conference? Chocolate?

All these topics will be bandied about.

Yes, Chocolate!

Hello, Bookmonster! Thanks for your excellent question.

I am very pleased to announce that the Psi Chronicles will be a trilogy! Freakling, which came out last fall, is the first book. Archon, which is the second book, will be coming out October 8--just a few weeks from now! And the third book will be coming out sometime after 2014. I'm absolutely thrilled to be able to tell the rest of Taemon's story.

I also have a picture book that will be coming out in 2015. Right now, an amazing illustrator is working on the art, and I'm very excited about that.

I will definitely write more books after completing the Psi Chronicles trilogy. I have so many ideas for books that I want to write, it's hard to pick! But most of the projects that I'm developing right now are for young adult readers. I wish I could write faster! (Working on that, too.)

Chocolate is fuel for writing!

Also helps when the reviews start coming in. Bad news or good news, chocolate is just the thing!

...and chocolate can slay dragons, too!

The slaying dragons question requires some thought. The answer that comes to mind is learning the discipline required for writing a longer piece, like a novel.

I was used to writing short stories and articles because I had written for magazines for several years before I tried to write a novel. Writing a 300 page novel was very different, and required a deeper emotional connection to my story, the kind of connection that makes you want to write even when you don't feel like writing because it feels like really hard work instead of fun.

But it is fun, in a really-hard-work kind of way. It's just that the reward at the end, the feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction with what you've done, that comes much later, so you have to hang on longer and trust that it will come. That's something that Freakling taught me.

I think this is an important concept for everyone to learn, and there are many different ways a person can learn it. For me, it was writing. (And parenting.)

So that's where chocolate comes in--it can be a mini-reward while you're muddling through, waiting for the big emotional payoff at the end. You know, endorphins releasing into your brain and all that. :)

Were there any surprises for you as a writer as your story unfolded? In other words, did any of your characters seem to take on a life of their own - leading the story in a different direction than you had originally envisioned?

Hi Brian!

Most of the surprises came from Amma. I didn't know her very well when I started writing Freakling, and her character really started to develop during the second half of the first draft, and even moreso in the revision stages. That was really fun! Kind of like striking up a friendship with someone, once you start spending a lot of time with them, they surprise you with what they are capable of.

Hi Lana -- Do you have any favorite books to recommend for readers new to middle grade? Thanks!

Hi Deborah! Thanks for joining in the conversation.

Middle grade is such an awesome category! This is the golden age of reading, as far as I am concerned. Readers this age are just discovering the world of novels and having these rich literary experiences for the first time. It gives me chills!

A reader new to middle grade will usually be around eight years old. Some of my favorite books for this age are The One and Only Ivan, When You Reach Me, and Wonder. I also love Ungifted and Schooled by Gordon Korman, and Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda, and The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy. And Andrew Clements also has a lot of really solid middle-grade titles. I could go on and on!

Thanks for a fun chat, everybody! If you think of any more questions, find me on twitter: @LanaKrumwiede

I'm guessing you're going to come back and answer questions again, so I'll ask one.

I love writing and keep a journal of book ideas. But I find it difficult to write a LONG story. I gave one of my stories to a publisher, but they declined saying the story was too short. It only came out to be 80 or so book pages. I'm afraid that I will not be able to write a book long enough to taken seriously.

When I write a story, I try to make it longer by adding more words and scenes. But it ends up being a story that's still to short, but has a bunch of useless scenes that making it sound like I'm stalling. And I am!

Give me some tips on how to make my writing longer. I have ideas for NOVELS, not picture books!

Also, my interest in my ideas changes from time to time. When I really like an idea and start a draft, sometimes another idea comings along that I like better. I hear that writing a book takes years. My interest only stays for a week or so! Please give me some advice!

My characters are also flat and lifeless. I let their personality stray.

All these problems make me seem unfit to be an author. But I really want to be one!

Hi, Bookmonster! I'm very happy to answer this question. There are a lot of parts to your question, but let me start by saying this: You have the heart of a writer. I can tell because you worry about the things writers worry about. You are thinking the thoughts of a writer, and you have the desires of a writer. I have no doubt you will find a way to tell your stories.

I have met a lot of writers in the past few years. Some of them have written best sellers. Some of them are just starting out. Here is what all writers have in common:

(1) All of us wish we could write better than we do. (Believe it or not, this is true of every single writer that I know, even the very successful ones.)
(2) All of us keep trying because our desire to tell our stories is more important than our imperfect writing.
(3) All of us keep trying to improve.

That is what having the heart of a writer means to me, and your question demonstrates all three of those desires. Therefore, you are a writer. End of discusssion.

Now, to address the question about writing a longer work: It's not easy. It was hard for me, too, when I first tried to write a novel. I had been used to writing short stories for magazines, and I really struggled with writing something as long as a novel. You should take courage in the fact that you are attempting a difficult task, and give yourself some time to figure it out.

The skill that you want to acquire is being able to tell a story in the right amount of time (or length, if you will). For some stories, that is a short time; for others, it's longer. This is the skill of pacing your story just right, and it takes time to learn. As you've already discovered, trying to "pad" a story with words, paragraphs, or scenes that are not integral to the story doesn't work. That is not good writing and not good pacing skill. That's not what you're aiming for.

Keep writing the story ideas that excite you the most, and try to think about how long you need to tell the story, what is going to be satisfying and engaging for the reader, how can you build gradually (but not too slowly) toward the climax. Those are the things to play with until you're satisfied that you've gotten them (mostly) right.

As you do this, you will gain a sense of story pacing that will stay with you, and when you develop new ideas, you'll have a better ability to gauge the size of the story you're telling. When you do hit upon a story that needs a novel-length space to tell, you'll recognize it and know what to do with it.

Another thing to try is to work on an idea and develop it a little more before you start to write. Think about what the character really wants and why can't he or she get it. What's in the way? What's at stake? Then start expanding on that. How could it be harder for your character to obtain their goal? How could the obstacles be more challenging? How can you take your character to a circumstance that is more dire, more desparate, more devastating?

Think of your character as having to go through a series of challenges in order to get what he/she wants. Start off kind of small because you need to build from there. Each challenge has to be a little more painful or risky than the one before. Each challenge has to either fail with disasterous results or possibly succeed with unexpected consequences that are equally disasterous. The disasterous results of each attempted challenge set up the next challenge, which is a bit worse than before. And this string of challenges leads to the big showdown at the end, otherwise known as the climax. The climax is where your character comes within a breath of failing, but manages to dig down deep and succeed. Don't let your character succeed too soon, or you cut your story short and stave of the awesome climax. Always go for the awesome climax!

When I was writing Freakling, I divided the story into four parts. Each part had its own "mini climax", so I knew that at tne end of part 1 Taemon would lose psi. At the end of part 2, his disability would be revealed publicly, at the end of part 3, he would decide to go back to the city, and of course the end of part 4 was the real climax. Giving myself benchmarks like that really helped with pacing. I aimed for about 50 pages for each part. (In reality, some of them ended up longer and some shorter.) So that's a technique you might try. If you know the ending, start planning backwards from there. What would be the mid-point of the story? After that you have two halves. Think of an event that would be a midpoint for each of those halves. Then you have four parts, like I did. Now it's like writing a series of four 50-page stories.

I've nearly written a novel-lenth answer, so I'll stop for now. But tomorrow I will write a little something about giving your characters some depth.

Thanks again, Bookmonster, for this very meaty question!

Thank you so much! Already that is helping me!

Bookmonster wrote: "Thank you so much! Already that is helping me!"

Bookmonster,
I'm not a published author, but I am a writer and I definitely feel your pain. Before I completed drafts on several books I'd never written anything longer than a few thousand words. You are definitely not alone. It's tough to write something engaging let alone finish a full novel.

Lana has given you some great advice but I wanted to add a couple of things that also might help you. Have you thought about getting a critique partner or two? Often times others can see in our writing places we think things are clear but they are really not. I've found I'm often brief when it comes to setting up scenes and character emotions. So my critique partners often point out places where I can expand on things in a healthy way. Will this get you from 80 pages to a full length novel, probably not, but they may start asking questions that will be things you never thought of and this may create more story for you as well.

Also to expand on Lana's advice on challenges. Think about ways to give your characters what they want but also create an additional problem in doing so. For example: Early on in the hunger games, Katniss volunteers to be tribute for her sister. This solves one problem immediately, she saves her sister's life, but it creates a much larger problem, she now puts her life at risk. So also think about how you can give your characters what they think they want but make them realize it comes with big consequences.

If you aren't already, I also recommend getting on Twitter. Follow some agents, editors, and writers. They often tweet great advice and tweet links to blog posts for writers that I've often found immensely helpful. If twitter isn't you thing even just Google searching should get you to some great blogs. Donald Maas and Nathan Bransford are two great resources that come to mind, but there are many others.

I know in the writer world it often feels like we are alone, but every writer feels or has felt what you are feeling at some point or another. I wish you the best of luck with your writing. It's not an easy journey but it is totally worth it!

Thank so much for this. In just these two comments alone I've improved some of
My techniques.

Yes to everything Jamie said! Thank you!

I have a wonderful writing group that helps me tremendously. And I do read a lot of books about writing. I read a lot of books in general, which is another important part of being a writer.

When I find a novel that I really love, I will often go back and study how the author did what she did. It's sort of like peeling back the wallpaper (the writing) and looking for how the story is constructed ( the craft of the writing).

It takes time. Be patient with the process and always keep writing!

I'm back to talk a little about creating characters with depth. As a reader, it's easy to tell when you are reading a book with characters who seem real, the kind of characters who could almost step out of the page, the kind of characters you want to hang out with. As a writer, it's harder to figure out how to make that happen. This is an area of my writing that I am still trying to improve. That said, I'll share with you the things that I do to try to make that happen.

You hear a lot of talk about three-dimensional characters, but what does that really mean? Here's the way I like to think about it:

First dimension = things your character does and says.
And yes, your characters need to be actively driving the story. The characters' choices and actions should be the engine that makes things happen in the story. If they are always reacting to things that other people do, the story will not be as strong or engaging. It's especially important to make sure your main character is the one who does the heavy lifting at the big dramatic scence of the climax. The resolution has to come because of the character's actions or choices. Anything else feels disappointing.

Second dimension = things your characters think and feel.
With the point-of-view character, make sure you have enough thoughts in the narration so that we understand why she is doing what she is doing. Motivation matters! We also need some strong emotions from the main character, written in a way that prompts the reader to feel those same emotions right along with the character. I try to check the emotions in my writing by asking myself questions like, Is this something that a real person would naturally feel or think in this situation? Have I shown the emotion or have I told it? How could the emotions be stronger or more poignant? It's hard to get the emotions just right, like seasoning the soup or some such analogy. You don't want too much and you don't want too little, but there is a nice happy spot somewhere in the middle.

Third dimension = what the character does when the pressure is on. This is where people really show their true colors, when the stakes are high and the pressure is intense and the clock is ticking. What do they do then? What do they do when they pick out the shoes they want to buy, take them to the counter to pay for them, and there is no clerk anywhere to be found. Do you take the shoes without paying? Do you leave the cash? Do you leave without the shoes? What if you are buying those shoes for your friend's child who has no shoes at all, and winter is coming on? What if you are on probation and one wrong choice, however small, could have big consequences? Those kinds of things tell you a lot about who that person is.

When you think about it, these are the three dimensions of getting to know someone in real life. When you first meet someone new, all you have to measure them by is their words and actions. As you get to know them better, you start to understand how they think and you learn to interpret their body language to understand what they are feeling. And, if you know someone for a long time, you will see how they handle difficult situations and you become acquainted with them in a very personal way. The same goes for characters from a book. You have to give your readers all three of those dimensions in order for readers to come to know your characters the way that they know their friends in real life.

As I am revising, I can check to see if I have a good balance of all of the three dimensions of character, or if one of them is weaker than the others. Then I can find the weak spots and shore them up. That's what revision is all about!

This is awesome, thanks.

Great post! Love those tips. I learn so much from you!

Hey everyone, there are ten advanced copies of Archon up for grabs, thanks to my publisher, Candlewick Press. Click over to Archon and scroll down until you see "win a copy of this book."